Monday, September 14, 2020

Pre-Sunrise this morning: -
No construction for almost three weeks. We are waiting on the roof trusses, due this week, and the windows, due on the 30th. Clicking on photos will enlarge them.

Yes the twin fawns are cute. However, there are no predators to keep the deer numbers in check, in balance with their environment, so they multiply exponentially. Last year the doe here had twins also, the year before she had triplets, twins before that also. Vehicle accidents kill many but there are still way too many. Thus the number of lyme diseases in humans increase; deer and small rodents are carriers of ticks and therefore the disease.

Even though I'm not overly fond of the hibiscus family, I somehow manage to always have some representatives in flower. The maroon leaved plant below I got at the Port Huron Farmers' Market last year.

This is a pure white flower, also hibiscus family, 

from a Rose of Sharon bush.

And my cream-white hollyhock, another hibiscus.

The central pillar of anthers/pistil are the hibiscus clue.

What I know for sure about the following photos is that they are sunflowers, perennial wild sunflowers (Helianthus spp). I had assumed, always risky, that they were Helianthis giganteus but then I noticed the petioles were long and the species description says they are virtually non-existent. Then I found Helianthus grosseserraratus which sounded better. Until I found that the two species often hybridize, as do many of the other sunflowers. That happens enough to produce a variety mentioned as Helianthis x luxurians. At which point I said to myself, I don't care. Really. I found it a few years ago near a farmer's field and it's no longer there. It's a sunflower with personality, often reaching more than ten feet high.

One of my favorite Hostas, a species I think, I found at the Port Austin Farmers' Market this past weekend. And finally one of the last dahlia flowers this year perhaps, frosts coming soon maybe.

I just noticed a garden bouquet of fall blooming clematis, a European variegated elderberry, and volunteer rudbeckia. (I wonder if the berries are edible or could be used for jellies like our American species.) 

Followed by concord grapes which can be used for juice and jellies, a platycodon - which was somehow missed by the deer, and a sedum, which also escaped the notice of deer and rabbits perhaps because it was so close to a rock.